Interview: Guess Hughes coming to dinner

All his films are visual feasts. And his latest, about the billionaire recluse Howard Hughes, eerily echoes Martin Scorsese's own take on life

Long Beach, California, October 30, 2003. Inside the old Queen Mary, now a permanently docked tourist attraction, a film crew awaits its director.

The original interiors of this majestic ship are perfect for the era being filmed today. The year is 1928. The party scene being shot takes place in a Hollywood nightclub. The film is The Aviator, which tells the story of Howard Hughes's early years. An eccentric billionaire industrialist, Hughes was the first mogul to make a $1m movie. He also dated Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow and Ava Gardner, and pioneered aviation before receding into a delusional, self-imposed exile. The director is Scorsese, Mr, or Marty, not Martin. The star is Leonardo DiCaprio.

On set, champagne glasses are filled with ginger ale. Period hors d'oeuvres are set on trays — egg salad on white bread. The art-deco bar is packed with crew and extras — men in tuxes, women in